


It's Still Beautiful

by everyday_forever



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, M/M, Memory Palace, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Fall (Hannibal), READ IF YOU WANT TO CRY, Sad and Happy, TWoTL, The Fall - Freeform, Tragic Romance, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter, deleted epilogue scene, final scene and a bit more, what if will and hannibal don't survive the fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:54:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27076093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everyday_forever/pseuds/everyday_forever
Summary: A canon-compliant examination of what could've happened if Will and Hannibal didn't survive the Fall, even as Hannibal tried to save them both. A more detailed account of a truly tragic ending worthy of these two.
Relationships: Will Graham & Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 10
Kudos: 61





	It's Still Beautiful

“See? This is all I ever wanted for you, Will” Hannibal says softly while glancing imploringly at Will before casting his eyes downward and to the side. He pauses, allowing the silence to linger before his next words fall on Will’s ears even softer. “For both of us.”

  
Will glances up at him, his eyes wide and vulnerable as he breathes heavily from the excess adrenaline. His eyes rake over Hannibal’s face, settling into the prolonged eye contact that Will seemed to despise with everyone but Hannibal. As he stares at him, a small laugh escapes as he smiles lightly.  
“It’s beautiful,” Will whispers, reaching out to rest his hand on Hannibal’s shoulder while Hannibal’s eyes widen in a mixture of disbelief and pleasure. Hannibal’s eyes drift to Will’s lips before looking up quickly again, searching his eyes. Will pulls his shoulder closer and sinks his head down onto Hannibal’s chest, resting his cheek against his sternum and breathing deeply as he continues to shake from the adrenaline. Hannibal lets out a silent sigh of contentment as a feeling of elation passes through him. He leans his head back before bringing it forward to rest his cheek against Will’s unruly curls. He closes his eyes, basking in the radiance of this moment. He feels Will wrap his arm tighter around his neck and before he knows it, he’s being swept off of his feet.

  
Instinctively, Hannibal wraps his arms tightly around Will as he feels the wind whip around him. He knows they are falling, and his only thought is to protect Will from the initial impact. He positions his body underneath Will in such a way so that Will won’t hit the water first. He cradles Will’s head with one hand as he wraps the other tightly around his waist, while also pressing his face to the side of Will’s. His eyes close as he waits for the inevitable.

  
The freezing water rips through him like thousands of knives and all breath is knocked out of him as he feels numerous bones break simultaneously in his body. Water presses relentlessly against him on all sides and as he realizes he’s completely submerged, panic courses through his body and he realizes he can’t feel Will pressed against him. His arms flail out uselessly, searching the surrounding water. Not feeling anything, he painfully pushes water down as he frantically gasps at the surface, the cold night air hitting like another full-body shock. The pain barely registers as adrenaline floods through him once again and he dives beneath the surface, pushing even deeper this time. His heart pounds rapidly in his chest, beating out a steady rhythm of _Will, Will, Will._ Pounding echoes in his head and he knows he’s running out of air but he refuses to lose Will to the sea. He stretches his arms and feet desperately in all directions, his heart stuttering to stop when his foot bumps against what feels like the top of a head. He swims down quickly, finding Will’s body sinking below him. He wraps an arm tightly around his chest and uses all the strength he can muster to push them towards the surface.

  
He gulps air down quickly as his head breaks the surface, pushing Will’s head up with his as well. But Will doesn’t emit a similar gasp. Hannibal chokes on a sob as he looks to Will to find his eyes and mouth closed, not breathing. Luckily, they are so close to the edge of the bluff that Hannibal doesn’t have too far to swim. He throws his body toward the cliff’s edge, dragging Will behind him. Reaching the rocks at the cliff, he hoists Will’s body up against a larger rock before pulling himself over him. He assesses Will quickly, his eyes coming to a halt over a dark pool of fresh blood on Will’s shirt at the bottom of his ribcage. He reaches out his shaking fingers, numb with cold, and slides Will’s wet shirt off his shoulders to reveal several protruding broken ribs, the blood pouring from him like a black snake in the moonlight.

  
He tears his eyes away from the bones sticking out from Will’s skin and presses his lips to Will’s, trying with everything he has to breathe life back into him. He executes the compressions perfectly, but Will doesn’t wake. Hannibal dives to his mouth desperately again, before performing more compressions so forcefully he fears more ribs will break. He presses his lips once again to Will’s and receives a face full of seawater as Will coughs up the sea from his lungs. He sputters and gasps, his body’s survival mode setting in automatically as it dispels the rest of the water from his lungs. Hannibal breathes a sigh of relief and presses his hand to Will’s cheek, running his thumb across the cheekbone.

  
“Will,” he croaks out. Will blinks up at him blearily, gasping in between pained moans.

  
“N-no,” Will manages to stutter, shaking his head rapidly as a single tear escapes his eye and he squeezes them shut against the onslaught of sharp pain in his body. He groans low in his throat and wraps his shaking arms around his waist, feeling the blood pour out of him.

  
“Why, Hannibal? Why couldn’t you just let me die?” he asks, trying to glare at Hannibal but the pain is so great that only a grimace forms on his face. Hannibal swallows before shaking his head reluctantly.

  
“My life isn’t worth living without you in it. You weren’t supposed to leave.” Hannibal clenches his hand into a fist briefly before bringing his hands to press on the wounds in Will’s ribcage in an attempt to stop the blood flow.

  
“I-I w-w-wasn’t trying to leave you alone, H-Hannibal,” Will says between chattering teeth. “You w-were supposed to c-come with me.” Will reaches out and grasps Hannibal’s wrist desperately before staring into his eyes intensely. He takes a deep breath to keep his teeth from chattering so he can speak.

  
“Hannibal. Look at me. I’ve already lost too much blood. I feel a broken rib slowly puncturing my lung. You’re still bleeding profusely from your gunshot wound. We couldn’t possibly make it from the bottom of this godforsaken cliff even if we wanted to.” Will rubs his thumb placatingly over Hannibal’s hand as Hannibal stares at him blankly before blinking several times in quick succession.

  
“We weren’t supposed to die like this, Will. I made a place for you in this world. A place for us. I knew you wouldn’t leave me with Alana forever. You beautiful creature, you have finally reached your becoming. Would your last act really be to kill us both?”

  
“H-Hannibal, please. I just wanted to die a good man. Or at the very least I just wanted my last act to be a good one. I knew that if I had walked away from that with you, there’d be no stopping us. We’d’ve unleashed hell, Hannibal” Will said with a slight smirk that faded quickly as the rip in his cheek burst with pain. Hannibal looked down at Will, his microexpressions betraying a quick succession of anger, dismay, and finally, pure adoration.

  
“It seems that the Wrath of the Lamb did come for us too, in the end. Fate and circumstance have returned us once again to the moment where the teacup shatters” Hannibal smiled softly.

  
“No. I’m no teacup and neither are you. But come tomorrow morning, we will be found right here, shattered. That is what they will see. But they will also see that even in death, we are conjoined. Our shattered bodies may be in pieces, but our pieces lie suspended together on an eternal canvas. They will see, Hannibal.” Will smiles beautifully at Hannibal, his smile echoing the one he wore blissfully on the clifftop.

  
“This is your design,” Hannibal stated simply, his eyes raking over Will’s face with an expression of pure reverence.

  
“This is my design,” Will repeats back, the eyes locking with Hannibal’s showing nothing but unadulterated contentment. “Come with me, Hannibal. Please.” Hannibal shudders as he feels his heart clench.

  
“Naturally, my dear Will. Where else would I go?” Hannibal sinks down to the rock and lays flat on his back, letting out a deep sigh as he does so and looks up at the stars twinkling above them. He takes several deep breaths, steadying his beating heart. The adrenaline once coursing through his blood has been nearly depleted and the acceptance of his nearing death seems to bring a sense of peace to his body. With each receding drop of adrenaline from his blood stream, he can feel each and every ache, break, and pain in his body with increasing intensity. But the pain that only impending death can bring simply cannot help but be overwhelmed by the pure sense of joy he feels as he lays next to Will.

  
Will, however, seems to have taken a turn for the worse after having thoroughly exhausted his remaining strength to communicate his last words to Hannibal. His breaths have quickened and have taken on a raspy quality, which is exacerbated by what can only be described as whimpers of pain. Hannibal’s heart constricts and he reaches an arm over Will, pulling him on to his side despite his grunt of protest, angling him so that his head rests on Hannibal’s chest. Will nestles his head right under Hannibal’s chin and wraps his arm around his torso, clinging on to Hannibal with desperation. Will begins to shake as his body starts to go into shock and he lets out a gasp of pain tinged with fear. Hannibal brings up his hand from Will’s waist to rest against his head, twisting Will’s curls in what he hopes is a comforting manner.

  
“Will, shh, it’s alright. You can make it all go away. Put your head back. Wade into the quiet of the stream.” Will lets out a slight sob at these words, but he does lean his head back ever so slightly, tilting his chin up to look at Hannibal’s face. Hannibal looks down at him, admiring how even in his last moments, Will looks terrifyingly angelic in the moonlight. Will manages a slight smile as he looks into Hannibal’s eyes.

  
“It’s s-s-still b-beautiful” Will says, tightening his grip on Hannibal’s chest one last time before he lets out a final raspy breath. The lights leave his eyes and his heart stutters to a stop.  
Hannibal reaches out and gently closes Will’s eyelids, pressing a chaste kiss to his temple before resting Will’s head back under his own chin. Tears silently stream down his face and he closes his eyes, willing his own body to follow Will’s lead, and quickly too.

  
Hannibal is only partially aware of his slowing heart rate. He doesn’t notice how much harder it gets to breathe. He surely doesn’t recognize the feeling of his own heart stopping.

  
What he does realize is a bright white light engulfing him before the image before him shifts into focus. The foyer of the Norman Chapel in Palermo dazzles him in all of its majesty, but his eyes are drawn quickly to the outline of the man standing at the altar in an impeccable suit.

Hannibal steps forward quickly, walking towards Will with a smile. He can’t help but notice Will’s beauty- the gash from the dragon on his face gone, his smile radiating light. His deep brown curls positioned perfectly. As Hannibal reaches Will down towards the altar, Will gestures to a seat in the right aisle of the chapel, and Hannibal smiles at Will as he sits, crossing his legs as he does so.

Will himself sits in a chair near Hannibal but on the left side of the aisle. He crosses his left leg over his right so that his left foot points towards Hannibal, in a mirror image of Hannibal.

Hannibal sees so clearly in this moment that Will is his reflection. His other half. His identically different partner. Will flashes that dazzling smile at Hannibal once again as if reading Hannibal’s thoughts before folding his hands in his lap and closing his eyes. Hannibal mimics him, both of them content to close their eyes and put their head back. Their faces point ever so slightly towards each other, displaying nothing but perfect fulfillment as they settle in to bask in the light of each other’s presence for eternity.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This is my first ever fanfic and I just wanted to write out my sad interpretation of what could've happened with the canon ending and the deleted epilogue scene. A tragic ending just seems so natural for these two. 
> 
> ~~If you're interested in more alternative endings, post-finale explorations, and/or canon-divergent stories, be sure to check out my other works!! I promise that some do have happy endings :) ~~


End file.
